Sucked into the Matrix Even Further...

I hate to say it, but I officially have given into the Matrix yet again: I set up a myspace page. Trust me, I'm not proud. So deep am I already that I forgot I had a blog! Pathetic, I know, but it won't consume me like that anymore. I will post something more substantial after I detox.

In the meantime, check out my myspace page here.

I'm getting better at putting stuff on it.

To Do List

We all have goals, whether they be secret or well known to others, that we want to accomplish before we kick the bucket. It helps to verbalize them or write them down in a visible place, so that you won't keep pushing them to the back of your mind while dealing with the banality of everyday living. Or, you can go to this cool new website 43things.com and post them there and/or read zillions of other people's wishes. Some are so interesting that I realize I need to revise mine and think even broader than I thought I [already] was. It's easy to forget that when you really want to do something, it can and will be done, no matter how long it takes you to accomplish it all.

Here are just a few of the things on my list (not in any particular order):

1. Climb/Visit every pyramid in the world (almost finished with this one)
2. Raise competent children
3. Finish writing my book (1/4 of the way completed)
4. Actually publish it
5. Love what I see in the mirror, no matter what's staring me back in the face
6. Make more money
7. Learn to speak at least 2 languages fluently
8. Finish reading all the "must read" books on my list
9. Physically volunteer in Africa in any way I can; Lord knows that continent needs all the help we can afford to give it.
10. Like my poetry, no matter how corny it seems to me (and maybe get it published, too!).

The list, of course, goes on. The originator of this blog-style site says that 43 is a reasonable, doable number, so I don't feel so bad about having an uberlong list. And as I grow, change, and hopefully, accomplish some of them, my list will change and be more refined, as will yours. Happy goal-setting!

Healthy Insanity

My girlfriend sent me this too-funny email that I just had to post here. It actually had me laughing out loud, and I usually don't even read mass emails. This one had me going, though. (We already know I like corny jokes, mind you...!)


Ways To Maintain a Healthy Level Of Insanity

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
3. Every time people ask you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4. Put your trash can on your desk and label it "In."
5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
6. In the memo field of all your checks, write "For Sexual Favors"
7 Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy."
8. Dont use any punctuation
9. As Often as possible, skip rather than walk.
10. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
11. Specify that your drive-through order is "To Go"...several times
12. Sing along at the opera
13. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme
14. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.
15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
16. Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name ... Rock Bottom.
17. When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I won!, I won!"
18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling, "Run for your lives! They're loose!!"
19. Tell your children over dinner: "Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."


I know, it's corny and you all have probably gotten this and deleted from your mail--as you should have!

Spring Cleaning

Today I'm going to share a little something not for those that are weak of heart: I just started a 3 month colon cleanse! Talk about cleaning the pipes!!! I am just so excited and scared about what's going to happen that I couldn't contain it and had to document this day in history. An extremely good friend of mine recommended it and has already been taking it for a couple of weeks, which is what kept me from being too hesitant about taking it myself. I also enlisted a crazy girlfriend of mine to experience this bliss with me and she is starting it today also. Don't worry, you won't see any crazy pictures or anything--I won't be taking you that deep into the process. However, if you would like to take the plunge with me (and see pictures that will change your life), just go to the Dr. Natura website and see everything for yourself. I dare you...

Interesting Tidbit

I remember my teacher in Speech class always telling us not to use our hands so much, that making hand gestures while talking was ineffective and distracting. I agree, to a certain extent; sometimes a gesture or two is OK when something needs to be further emphasized. Moving hands for no reason (nervous hand movements because you don't know what to do with yourself when you're talking) is just like white noise. Then, just recently, while flipping through a magazine, I found an interesting little bit of information:

*Gesturing as you speak may actually boost your communication skills. In a University of Alberta study in which people were asked to watch a cartoon and then describe it, those who used their hands to help express themselves recalled more than those who didn't. Notes lead study researcher Elena Nicoladis, Ph.D., "Gesturing can help you find the words you need."


So now I guess I can be a little less annoyed with people who use their hands all the time when talking...



*Research reported by Kimberly Tranell in October 2005 Glamour Magazine -- I told you I read gloss!

Viva Las Vegas!

On my way to Vegas to gamble on the religious holiday! Before I left, I just wantedto impart my thanks to all of the people who support this blog by posting comments, emailing, and calling me. I haven't had such interesting conversations since I started this thing. I appreciate the time taken to read this silly little blog-- it makes me feel like this isn't a waste of time.

I love you, all my fans!!!

(OK, I'm done acting like I'm famous...watch out, though, I'll be famous before you know it...!)

The Scent...

Since I've been getting some good feedback from the previous post on racism and its resurgence, I thought I'd follow up with a controversial poem I wrote last year after reading Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marques, last year. This poem sparked great conversation with several associates of mine and continues to whenever someone asks me to read it. So let's keep the wheels turning and the discourse flowing!

And before people start persecuting me, remember: this was inspired by a story. It's not my personal opinion!!!

Scent of a Black Woman

She thought she knew him so well.
Having shared a life, nothing could be left out…
She thought.

I know his favorite foods, cook them
just right and even know when
they are craved. I know his taste in women:
No Black, no Yellow, no Red, no Brown:
strictly Porcelain.
He would never entertain thoughts so sacrilege,
so entirely impure.
I speak his thoughts before he can
think them himself;
I am his conscience.
I know his scent and what he’s done
when I smell his clothes before I clean them.
I know everything.

What is this smell emanating from his pants?
This scent with which his shirt is infused?
It comes not from him or any routine activity.
Never have I smelled it;
surely there is no need for alarm…
Things will be normal again on the morrow.

Now she smells this foreign scent everyday.
Routine, indeed!
It has been months, yet the scent remains unaddressed.
What can it be? She casually sets his clothes
in a heap before him and makes not a sound.
He looks up from his paper and begins to cry.
Almost relieved, he repents his affaire d’amour.
She stares through him with eyes of blue ice.
She’s forgiven him many transgressions,
one night stands and more, but he knows she will never
forgive him for bringing this evil into their home:
the scent of a Black woman.

©2005 Vicky T. Davis

The Rebound of Racism

I came across an interesting article last week about racism and whether or not it ever went away (on iZania.com). I thought immediately that it was a truly silly question. Of course racism never went away; it got swept under the rug like so many other controversial issues that lack remedies. If anything, racism has gotten progressively worse and one has to be blind or oblivious to not recognize it when it sits perched on our shoulders everyday.

I have yet to do background research on the author of the following piece, but I thought I'd post his article anyway just to get some responses on this topic. So, here goes; let me know what you think! (Any grammatical errors in this piece are not mine, although I did a little cleaning... :) Also, not all of his views are necessarily mine. Keep that in mind; I only want to start discussion and raise awareness. This is not an issue that is going away any time soon.)

Race Dialogue Is Back, But. . . Did Racism Go Away?

America is talking about race again. With Crash winning the Oscar and Ice Cube co-producing a series on race called Black/White on FX, race dialogue is back! But did racism ever go away? Or did it just change forms and go underground? It has been well documented over the past five years (since the turn of the century) that the racial disparities of the last half of the 20th Century are still very much in evidence today. In some instances, they are greater than they were 40 or 50 years ago. These studies, that come from everywhere -- major universities to private research institutions to civil rights -- all said the same thing: that race is still very prevalent in American society, whether we talk about it or not. So, since race differences never went away, can we also assume that racism never went away? Of course, we can. Thus the need for a renewed race dialogue.

America is not colorblind. It’s so blinded by color that it just can’t see racism. Like looking into sun with Ray-Bans, the glare doesn’t make that object in front of you disappear. You will still run into it if you don’t make an adjustment in your vision. America never made the adjustment. That’s what the movie, Crash, is about . . . our refusal to acknowledge race until it confronts us.

Race dialogue took a decade long hiatus (since President Bill Clinton’s attempt to raise a national dialogue on race almost ten years ago) as America came up with race “fatigue” after the Soon Ja Du, Rodney King, and O.J. Simpson racial episodes of the early 1990s. Of course, Clinton’s efforts were an attempt to bring forth what some called the “Third Reconstruction,” to address the racial disparities left over from the unfinished work of the 1960’s war on poverty that was interrupted during the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. By the time the Reagan Revolution had come along, Reagan declared that poverty had won, and it was time to end “race policies.” By the time George Herbert Walker Bush came into office, America had developed colorblindness, public policy initiatives were “race neutral,” and any discussion about race, race differences, and most critically, racism, were now persona non grata in social circles and viewed as politically incorrect in the public domain. Nobody wanted to talk about race anymore, and opinion leaders went through great lengths to convince us that race no longer mattered. Foolish proclamations were made by a new phenomena, the Black Conservative—a new type of Negro that was used to deflect any discussion on race and racism. One such fool, Larry Elder, went on national television (20/20) and said, “There is no racism in America.” When I want comic relief, I don’t put on Steve Harvey, or Cedric The Entertainer, or D.L. Hugely. I put in that tape of 20/20.
. . . Colorblindness was a ploy that refused to acknowledge race, but racism is as plain as it’s ever been. Thanks to the arts, we again smell the stench of racism. Now it’s time to take out the trash.

Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of 50 Years After Brown: The State of Black Equality In America (Kabili Press, 2005). He can be reached at www.AnthonySamad.com

I will be happy to discuss this with anyone over email, phone or on this comment board. Happy thinking!

Cornball

For some stupid reason, this one joke never fails to make me laugh. My girlfriend sent it to me in a mass email ages ago, and somehow it just stuck with me. I hardly ever read mass emails! I was reminded of the following joke in a conversation having to do with what a stickler I am for grammar and pronunciation. Enjoy the most cornball joke ever!!!

Two dogs are sitting in a bar: one is an English sheepdog and the other is a Mexican Chihuahua. They’re having a drink when a gorgeous Collie walks in. The two dogs turn back to each other and continue drinking. Knowing they don’t have a chance with her, they resume conversation with the bartender. The bartender says, “I know her and I can probably score a date with her for one you guys.”

“Oh yeah?” they say.
“Yeah,” says the bartender. “But she likes a clever dog, one who can hold her interest. Tell ya what. Whoever can use these two words most creatively in a sentence gets a chance.”
“What are the words?” the sheepdog asks, tongue out.
“Liver and cheese,” the bartender replies.

The two dogs contemplate for a moment, and then the English sheepdog says, “I like liver and cheese.”
“No dice,” the bartended decides and looks at the Chihuahua.
The Mexican Chihuahua then says, “Liver alone, cheese mine.”

Hilarious!!!! Gets me every time.

Cherchez la Femme

I haven't written any poetry in a while and was looking at some of my abandoned works. I came across this one piece that a friend of mine told me I should post for womankind. This is for you, friend.

Cherchez la Femme

Hiding in the sinews of repressed emotions,
ducking from the pain they bring her,
she blends into the jungle, chameleon-like,
to protect herself from Lust’s bullets and
Ego’s derogatory arrows.

Under the guise of inflated machismo
is the only way she knows how to advance,
to surpass Life’s glass ceiling.
How else can she survive in a sex-crazed world
without numbing her mind to the
prostitution of her womanhood?
Pretending so long to be impassive,
apathetic to her own situation that is being
a woman,
like a pocketbook left on a bus seat,
she has forgotten her Femininity.

How can a woman, one of Creation’s most
complex and powerful beings,
disregard such an innate treasure?
Hmmm…

If man is defined as a human being and
woman simply as female, and whenever she
“behaves” as a human,
she is said to be emulating the male
(as writ by him),
then this male society that has made her
feel inferior from the first dawn has
caused the female to suppress aspects of her
Femininity in all its splendor, making her an
endangered species like the elephant
stripped of its tusks

Neither can survive.

©2005 Vicky Therese Davis

Clash of the Civilizations

A good friend of my mine sent me a link for the televised interview of a very brave and intelligent Arab woman. She spoke at length on the topic of a "primitive" Muslim culture clashing with encroaching westernization. Everyone can stand to watch her interview. I have a lot of respect for this woman. To come out on public tv in the middle east where her beliefs could do her harm in some circles, this woman has balls!


http://www.switch5.castup.net/frames/20041020_memritv_popup/video_480x360.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null

Solipsism

While reading my latest literary conquest, The Catastrophist, by Ronan Bennett, I came across a passage that struck me as quite an interesting insight and one that pertained to me and the way I read novels.

"...I stayed in my room and read novels. With one eye I watched the characters rise from the page, with the other I watched my own life. It sounds solipsistic, but reading about imaginary others made me intensely curious about my real self. Before then I had sent few queries in my own direction*. Once I started reading I entered a period of introspection and self-examination; fiction referred to me questions I had not even known how to formulate. It was like being forced to stand naked in front of the mirror in a harsh and unflattering light."

*This one sentence does not pertain to me, as I often question myself and my motives.

I always find it refreshing to find a passage that so eloquently puts in words what I feel and am unable to properly express to others. It has also come across my mind whether or not others read in this fashion, comparing themselves to characters and posing the questions the author has seemingly tried to answer him- or herself. As a very wise woman once said to me (and she knows who she is), "It's easier to look out the window than it is to look in the mirror." This is what books and their authors help me to do: look in the mirror and face the facts about myself, the good and ugly.

The character who wrote this passage is a writer, and he delves into this topic even further:

"I did not like the reflection cast back at me. I saw vanity, arrogance, self-importance, cowardice, I saw the meanness of my own motives. I started writing, I think, because I saw in words a way to cover myself up. In fairness, I did not try to use writing as reinvention, or as an advertisement, a sign behind which I could hide and say I was better than I was. Instead I rendered everything as a kind of sly joke, including the characters in which I breathed. That way I was only one more joke among many, my failings were invisible..."

As a writer, I found this admission so endearing, so brave, that the author of those words has looked that deep inside himself to understand and reveal his intentions, no matter how bad it might sound to the reader. To know oneself so fully is truly a blessing, one that is extremely hard to pull out from the layers of false pretenses we use to fool others.

I have asked the question to myself and other writers: Why do you write? I wonder if any of them know the true reason, and if they do, are they willing to admit it to themselves. I know the reason I write; I just don't know if I'm as brave as Ronan Bennett to admit it to other people!

Mannie, Minor, and Me

This past weekend my dad and uncle celebrated their 50th birthdays (they're twins). I went to Chicago to partake in the festivities and had a lovely time. More importantly though, was the epiphany I had while listening to my uncle share something personal about himself to the family and friends that were present: I am my father and uncle rolled up in one person. My uncle Minor expressed that with twins, there is always a strong one and a weaker one; a more confident one and one who has more insecurities; one twin who feels more emotion than the other. I am not denying or forgetting that half of my genes come from my wonderful mother -- I can always recognize the traits I have inherited from her quite clearly. As I was listening to my uncle bear his soul, I couldn't help but look within myself to see the very same things in me that were in him.

I was able, over the course of the weekend, to dissect aspects of my personality to see where they came from. I am not an exact reproduction of anyone, in the same way my dad and uncle, although identical in physical characteristics, aren't replicas of each other. The more time I spend with my uncle, the more I see myself in his body language, his thought patterns, the issues that concern him, and I am able to understand him more, as well as my father. The older I get, the older and the more settled in their ways the twins get, I can appreciate them and love them all the more, and in turn, understand and love myself and all the raging contradictions that make me who I am.

In a way, this was a birth day for me, too...

On to the New

Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy them.

-Christian Wiman
Editor, Poetry Magazine

Being Proactive II

Women: Protect yourselves from AIDS. HIV-positive men who don't wear condoms is a growing lethal danger to us. What is the best possible protection from this? Besides refusing to have sex without a condom, there is a gel containing microbicides; applied by women pre-sex, it could guard against HIV infection. There is one problem, though: It doesn't exist yet. Appoximately 20 such products are in development, and experts and scitentist project that they would help prevent 6 million HIV infections within three years of their release. They will never materialize, however, without more funding. Encourage legistaors to help pass the Microbicide Development Act (Senate bill No. 550, House bill No. 3854) and let's get something done to stop this epidemic which is killing us at a faster and more alarming rate.

(information provided in December 2005 Glamour Magazine)

Oh, Amy!

This past Saturday I went to the annual Miami Book Fair and listened to one of my favorite authors, Amy Tan, speak on writing, storytelling, and what is like to be a writer. Most of her talk was familiar to me after having read "The Opposite of Fate," my favorite book written by her to date. Although she was supposed to be promoting her new novel, "Saving Fish From Drowning," she decided to "wing it" and talk about how her mother became her muse. So much can be learned from their relationship with each other, thus from reading anything written by this magnificent force. Amy Tan truly is an inspiration. I encourage all avid readers and lovers of good English to try on one of her books. I think you'll like the fit.

I'm off to NY for Turkey Day. Let's give thanks to the pilgrims for killing the Native Americans and stealing their land by indulging in the feast the "Indians" taught them to make.

What a holiday.

Being Proactive

After having been affected by Wilma, I now truly understand and can appreciate the plight victims have (and still are) gone/going through. It is doubly hard for women and those with dependents to survive, much less rebuild. As a community, we need to get funds directly to those who are in most need. A great way of doing this on an individual level is to write or email letters to urge your local representatives to provide job training, extended welfare benefits, and funding, so men and women can reconstruct their homes, businesses and start moving forward from the wreckage their lives have become. Let's all lend a hand to help those in the south that were affected by Katrina, Rita and Wilma make even better lives for themselves than the ones they were forced from.

Property Value

I know the value of this site is going down, but only because I'm taking a real estate class that's got my head filled with computations and definitions I haev no hope of memorizing for the exam. Bear with me, folks, the property value will increase on my blog in the near future. No need to unload the investment it takes to type in the address to my blog. More new and thought-provoking essays will arrive shortly.

World Champions!

For all of those who said it couldn't be done: In your face!!! The Chicago White Sox are number 1! I can't wait to go back to the Chi and get some Sox gear!

We actually did it. How you like that Cub fans..?

Go White Sox!

That's all I have to say about that!